Doutoramento em Phoenix JDP - Dinâmicas da Saúde e Proteção Social: Uma abordagem das Ciências Sociais (Título Europeu)
Keeping head above water: social presence in the transitions of Brazilian women to motherhood
Carolina F. Pombo de Barros

Orientação: Felismina Mendes & Marc Bessin

Keeping head above water: social presence in the transitions of Brazilian women to motherhood. Com-paring experiences in Brazil, France, Portugal and Sweden.

The main objective of this thesis was characterizing and analysing social presence in the transition(s) of Brazilian women from privileged classes to motherhood, in Brazil, France, Portugal and Sweden, in recent years. As a final goal, it intended to contribute to de-construct the hegemonic model of ―good motherhood‖ in Brazil, which is established from the experiences of middle-class white Brazilian wom-en. As methodological strategy, it focused on Brazilian mothers‘ experiences of presences, using Com-puter-Mediated Communication and three methods in parallel: a documentary research on official re-ports of perinatal health and family policies, biographical interviews and recording of daily diaries, artic-ulated through a phenomenological perspective. Therefore, in my fieldwork I searched, in a spiral drift-ing, how certain moral rhetorics associated to gender, class and racial norms are reproduced by privi-leged mothers in maternal transitions. Beyond of this process of reproducing hegemonic representation of motherhood, I also found generating hesitations and ethical enactment among these women towards marginalized mothers such as racialized, single and poor ones. Finally, this thesis discusses how care ethics raise from daily parental relationships and how improving responsive social presence is quite significant for the promotion of such ethics beyond of feminine care work.

Keywords: social presence; care ethics; perinatal health; family policy; immigration; intersectionality.